Tom Hanks speaks during the 24th Annual Television Critics Association Awards Show

Just as the “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” director raised Americans’ spirits during the Depression, Hanks is producing several social parables that search for cheer in our own sinkhole economy.

First up is “The Talk of the Town,” about an out-of-work 48-year-old guy who enrolls in junior college to try to update his skills. He’s embarrassed at first, but Hanks says it ends up being all good.

“I’m interested in stories about people doing something out of the ordinary to cope with a bad situation, and it ends up changing their lives,” the Oscar-winner tells us.

He’s also looking to make “How Starbucks Changed My Life,” based on a true story about an unemployed ad exec. “Here was a guy who was at the pinnacle of his career, and he got aged out, downsized, laid off,” said Hanks. “He goes to Starbucks and a lady says, ‘Would you be interested in working here?’”

Hanks cautions, “You can’t use this economy to tell a story ... like in the ’50s, during the commerce that was Hollywood, when a guy would be saying, ‘You know what people love? Dogs. And they love kids.

Let’s have a movie with dogs and kids. And nuns, we’ll have nuns.’ You can’t make movies like that.” Not the good ones Hanks makes, anyway.